Thanks, Alicia!

Thank you, Kerstin!

@nuffieldlibrary.bsky.social @sociologyoxford.bsky.social

@pnasnexus.org @sociologyoxford.bsky.social @nuffieldlibrary.bsky.social @sriucl.bsky.social @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social @rug.nl

Overall, our paper underscores the pervasiveness of ingroup preferences. It’s difficult to tackle segregation by just targeting meeting opportunities. Measures to support preference change are also needed (e.g., programs promoting tolerance and acceptance).

Experiment 3 shows that respondents prefer their ingroups to a similar degree, regardless of whether the composition of their entire club or the team is concerned (with whom they would spend most time). This suggests that segregation likely ‘adds up’ at each decision node in the setting selection.

These ingroup preferences are stronger among individuals who are currently part of neighborhoods or civic organizations with larger proportions of ingroup members.

Older individuals prefer settings where more people are above 50 and Dutch people without a migration background prefer settings with fewer people of Turkish or Moroccan origin. The only exception are individuals without university education, who display no ingroup preferences regarding education.

For example, respondents with a college degree were on average willing to travel 6 minutes further from their neighborhood to key amenities or from their home to a civic organization if that would mean the respective setting had 75 instead of 25% college-educated members.

Experiments 1 & 2 then showed that people consistently prefer settings with more ingroup members. These preferences are sizable and our experimental setup allows us to express them in terms of additional travel time they are willing to incur.

First, we asked respondents about the composition of their current neighborhoods and organizations and the composition of the people they regularly interact with. For all dimensions studied (age, ethnicity, education), segregation is stronger in civic organizations vis-à-vis neighborhoods.

We fielded survey modules including three conjoint experiments in two high-quality samples of the population in the Netherlands (LISS and TRIAL). What are the findings?

We identify ingroup preferences using a set of conjoint experiments, looking at how individuals choose between neighborhoods and civic organizations (e.g., sports clubs, cultural associations) with different social compositions.

Many people live their lives in social bubbles, i.e., segregated settings that offer little opportunity for intergroup contact. Such segregation may emerge from ingroup preferences or opportunity constraints. Both are difficult to distinguish by only looking at the social settings people end up in.